Ethnic Bulgaria.

Volunteers do not end up in their sites by accidents.  Peace Corps asks us what kind of place we want to live, and then they try to match us as best they can to the available sites who have requested a volunteer.  My requests were: I wanted my own classroom (it’s common for teachers to move from class to class, while the students remain in the room; I wanted my own room so I could decorate it), I wanted a town bigger than 2000 people, and I wanted to live someplace multiethnic. Bulgaria does not have a homogenous population.  Most people consider themselves to be “ethnic Bulgarian”, whatever that means.  (Since the Bulgarian population is a mixture of the original Slavic inhabitants and Turkish invaders from Western China, thousands of years ago, people who claim to be ethnic Bulgarian can be blonde or dark or anything in between.)  The two largest minority groups are the Turkish and the Roma.  The Turkish are Bulgarian citizens, but would never call themselves Bulgarian – they’re Turkish. They’re mostly Muslims.  The Roma sometimes call themselves Turkish as well, and are either Muslim or Christian.  There are no strict lines with ethnicity and religion; there are Pomacks (ethnic Bulgarian Muslims), too.  I’m still working on getting a handle on all of this.  I can’t tell who’s Turkish and who’s Bulgarian, but the Roma are pretty easily distinguishable – they’re very obviously of Indian origin. In Boboshevo, almost everyone is ethnic Bulgarian and Christian.  There are, I think, two Roma kids in the school.  But Pavel Banya is a more diverse place and I’m a little confused. I see a lot of older women wearing what appear to be headcarves.  They don’t look like the headscarves I was used to seeing in Chicago.  Rather, they just look like kerchiefs, tied under their necks.  If I had never been anywhere else in Bulgaria, I’d think it was a Bulgarian thing, but because I never saw anyone wearing these in Boboshevo, I wonder if the women are Muslims.  I know there are Turkish villages around Pavel Banya, but I don’t know if these women are Turkish or not.  They could be Pomacks. Now, the Roma.  I’ve heard the plight of the Roma compared to African Americans in the US, but in my opinion, this is a faulty analogy – the Roma are in a <I>much</I> worse situation.  It is perfectly socially acceptable to openly discriminate against them.  (One of my classmates told me this anecdote: when he visited his site for the first time, his counterpart told him that there was another volunteer in their town, working with Roma kids.  She – the counterpart – then said “If you help her, I won’t be your friend.”)  There are a number of superstitions, like, “If you sing at the table, you’ll marry a gypsy”.  Nice!  In theory, the schools are integrated, but in practice, there are still Roma schools and Bulgarian schools.  Even in more integrated schools, Roma kids often don’t have textbooks or class materials.  I have been informed by volunteers who work with the Roma that their culture doesn’t value education very highly (they value having a good time in the present, and don’t worry about long term planning), and most girls drop out of school at 8th grade or so, to get married. Needless to say, there are very few images – positive or not – of the Roma in the Bulgarian media.  With one exception: <A HREF=”http://azisfens.hit.bg/azisb.jpg”>Azic!</A>  Azic probably requires his very own entry.  Next time.